STRATHAM — Town officials aren't on board with a potential cost increase for the COAST bus service there.

COAST has asked communities to chip in more as demand for a particular Americans with Disabilities Act requirement for door-to-door pickup has increased the past five years.

Executive Director Rad Nichols said COAST has provided that ADA service since the mid-1990s, but in recent years costs are “exploding” due to a large jump in ridership.

“We've seen demand grow by approximately 50 percent per year,” Nichols said, adding in 2009 the ADA door-to-door service cost COAST about $180,000, and in the current 2013 fiscal year, the cost is estimated to be about $850,000.

“So you can see what the costs are doing,” Nichols said. “They're exploding.”

As COAST is a nonprofit entity, the amount communities pay is a financial request of the company, but towns and cities ultimately decide how much to contribute.

“Every community can decide not the fund COAST,” Nichols said. “If they decide not the fund at the levels we request, we have to make some difficult decisions.”

The requests are based on a funding formula that takes into account the population living and working within walking distance of the routes, the number of service miles provided and number of riders.

Stratham Town Administrator Paul Deschaine said the funding formula adjustment for Stratham would increase the annual amount the town pays to about $18,000 from its current payment of $6,000.

This increase equates to about $30 per ride. Deschaine said Stratham has two ADA and two non-ADA regular COAST riders, which makes up just .2 percent of the bus system's total ridership.

Nichols said the cost increases for this ADA requirement are associated with the increased hours vehicles are out on the road and the increased miles driven.

In COAST's service area, Nichols said there are about 30 ADA individuals who are regular or heavy users of the service — a heavy user being someone utilizing the bus service for transportation to and from dialysis.

“They may have used to rely on friends and family or other (Department of Health and Human Services) funded programs to get them to and from dialysis, but increasingly these folks are looking to us for their transportation needs,” Nichols said. “We're a bit concerned that's representative of the state shifting costs to the regional or local levels.”

The federal government funds about 60 percent of COAST's service, and the small fares charged to passengers make up about 5 percent of its annual budget.

“For an organization like COAST, we have a limited amount of resources for a service that's just exploding in demand,” Nichols said. “Absent the federal government stepping up, or the state putting in any money, it falls to the local communities.”

Deschaine said the current arrangement still stands with COAST and the town doesn't plan to change it.